She's Leaving Home
by pOnDeReSqUe
Summary: Sixteen, pregnant, alone... she left her home to take care of the one joy she had. Gah, CORN. You know the story, or at least the basic outline. Angst, humor, drama, all the good stuff. Read and review.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N**: Not a long A/N this time, 'cause I don't want it to be longer than this chapter. Um, sorry about the lack up updates on the Utterly Ramblacious front, it's mostly 'cause my computer's being a stupid head. It keeps turning off randomly, and I was writing a new chappie and went to lunch, and I came back and it was completely screwed up…now it just won't turn on. I blame the sock gnome. Little bugger, always plotting my demise. I'm typing this on the 'family computer.' But don't give up hope.

This is a "Lorelai getting pregnant and going to Stars Hollow" fic. Not sure what the technical ff dot net lingo for it is. But it's going on as long as I feel it should, which should be very, very long. 'Cause I've been in school three weeks and it's what I spend class time doing, when I feel like the lessons are getting either pointless or boring, which I'd have to say is about 90 percent of the time. I may fail this semester, but at least you'll be happy.

AHEM.

**Disclaimer**: I do not own Gilmore Girls! I'm shocked! I'm bleeding! Get the tourniquet! No, the tourniquet is dirty 'cause Rory wouldn't wash it with _her_ stuff!

* * *

Faucet still flowing loudly, the steady drip of the shower keeping the beat of the world she was not in, all she could see was her face; stark and sharp in the spotless mirror… Eyes outlined with fuzzy blotches of red, the uneven scrawl of her bitten lips as they hung in sudden abandonment. A tangle of hair crisscrossing pale forehead and intertwining with cold numb fingers as they trespassed her scalp, pressing down, scratching hard without feeling, catching in the greasy knots she hadn't brushed in two days.

There was nothing different about her features. Same nose, same chin, same dark eyebrows highlighting her eyes- it was something else that made her stare. Something had been lost over the course of ten minutes in her face, and something rougher had replaced it. Slyness turned to worry. She worried it would never come back.

She tore her puffy eyes away from the face in the clean cut glass and to her the bathroom seemed alarmingly normal, marble floor shining, toothbrushes color coordinating with their individual containers, blue rug neatly aligned with the bathtub's square edge. She had thrown up in this bathroom, had, chuckling to herself, trashed it a few times when rolling her eyes stopped working its magic. The days after those bad days, when her trashing and nausea was gone, she always returned to this spot, bare feet against cold floor, and it was always the same. It was always the same- she could not change this room, or anything in this house. Her outcries and yelling and anger and tears were stifled as soon as they came. She was trapped in a place where emotion wasn't normal.

Shocked out of her thoughts, it came; a smart rap on the door and an attempt at turning the locked doorknob. Emily. One more glimpse at the floating head, and her hand grabbed at the strip on the counter, protecting the truth from the woman now three feet away in case the thick wooden door between them decided to defy all common physic laws and crumble to let the frost in.

"Lorelai? Lorelai, are you in there?"

It took exactly five seconds for Lorelai to gather the strength to voice an answer normally.

"I'm almost out, mom."

"Well, hurry up. Rosetta needs to clean."

"I'm almost out."

Emily Hmphed, perhaps at the strangely wit-free response that Lorelai had practically whispered. She stormed away, muttering something about cotillion.

When Lorelai resumed her gaze, the lines, the colors in her face were blurred- stretched out and mutated through a cloudy mess of tears. Her eyes were magnified; she tried to identify the expression. Anger? At whom? The only thing she could feel was a sort of deep burning between her heart and her throat, and the loud thumping of her heartbeat in her head, echoing over and over. Everything else was numb. She felt as if she was carrying baggy, loose, nerveless skin on her body, pulling away from her muscles and slipping from her bones.

Her hand slowly released its tight clench on the test trip, and slowly dropped it back onto the countertop.

Pink. Yep. Pink.

Pink.

How had this happened?

She knew how it happened. 7th grade Health and a very misguided conversation with her mother when she was nine had informed her, thoroughly and with plenty of visual aid, of how exactly this happened. The point was that it had happened. It had happened, and now she was staring at a pink line that confirmed, in its unknowing, unintentional way, that nothing would ever be the same again. It wasn't an overly dramatic way to describe things, at all- it was true. In every sense, in every aspect of her life, it was true.

Yes, it had happened, "it" being the new queasy sensation in her stomach, in the exact vicinity of where something else, something small and unthinking and powerful and alive was now beginning to grow.

It had happened. The unthinkable had happened. Those repetitive words could circulate in her mind forever, but they weren't going to do anything. She was responsible for the pink and the nausea and the feeling, she had done this, she and Christopher and a few swigs of vodka on an empty stomach and the intoxicating smell of those bluebells by her balcony and the sweet warm breeze, that odd warm spell that had graced Connecticut this early spring but it had made heads mushy, hands fumbling, skin seem softer and the sun more welcome on exposed skin. They had done this, culminated together into a single moment where caution was thrown and bodies were aligned- and that moment and some form of pure chance had created this moment, these tears, this urge to fall asleep for a very long time.

Words, she wasn't sure what words they were, but they were trying to come out of her mouth. What was she trying to say the girl in the mirror? She didn't know but her head was spinning with the past, until something told her to think. Just think.

Plan- she needed a plan. Christopher should know. When her throat began working normally again, she would tell him. Three words, that's all she needed- a proper noun and a contraction and another noun, that's all she needed. She was sure she could handle the first two, but the third was the hard one… It made her hands shake and her legs melt. And his face, and the questions he'd ask- the new set of answers she'd have to come up with. She'd tell him. Soon.

Emily and Richard. She could predict their faces as she spoke; the cold glares at her abnormally small voice, morphing into shock, panic, anger- then all three at once. _What about our friends? How can they find out about this?_ Question marks into exclamation points and then silence, when she'd slam the door to her room. And then yelling again. They wouldn't heal from this. It wouldn't be like when she ditched second period last week and the principal called; it would be twenty years of them reminding her of her mistake. All of her mistakes. And she'd hate them for it.

Soon.

School… school would be bad. There was nothing to do about that but stocking up on baggy sweaters and hoping her charm could carry it all off as something light, something relatable.

And the future…tomorrow seemed like three years away, the tissues she'd have to wrap the test strip in three miles. The future was not important right now. A smile was, a big fat pretend smile to plaster on her face, and at least a semblance of normality. That meant brushing her hair, lipsmackering her mouth, leaving this room with the toilet seat closed and the rug aligned because normal in this place meant still, unmoving. She and the flowers and Christopher had changed everything. The house and its owners wouldn't like it.

"Lorelai…dinner begins in seven minutes. Are you planning on making an appearance today or should I donate your roast to a relief fund?"

_Keep your voice normal, bright_…"I'll be right down…"

"That's what you said twenty minutes ago. What are you doing in there? Are you sick?"

"Just…Hold on."

Her voice was stronger already. She clasped both hands calmly to her stomach and stood there a moment. Hard was something she knew. This would be hard from now on. Why did she feel safe somehow, now, liberated? When her future had just been warped into something hazy and unrecognizable from where she stood?

"Lorelai!"

"Mom! I'll be right out!"

Cold water against skin- her face was washed, her hands scrubbed, the strip embedded in crumpled tissues and buried in the trash. Not that anyone but the current maid ever glanced at the trash.

She unlocked the door. The bathroom was free of suspicion, it was identical to the one she'd walked into an hour ago. How did it do that? How does a place experience such a moment and then withdraw with no physical or emotional souvenir but what appeared to be a large wad of tissue at the bottom of the trash? Even in her head, it seemed cold and lifeless and unassociated. She might as well have found out she was pregnant at sixteen on an anonymous park bench.

That was its magic. That was its danger.

She turned the knob and stepped through to the other side.

* * *

Woosh, so much bloody angst, its killing me. Now press the pretty review button and get your rantings out. That's what I'm here for. And can you believe that season 6 is only ELEVEN FREAKING DAYS AWAY? It has been so long… yet somehow it seems only yesterday that I was freaking my dad out when I screamed at the "What…" BOOM AMY SHERMAN PALLADINO. And wouldn't stop shaking for about two days… God, I can't wait. 


	2. Closet Talk!

**A/N: **_Well. What do you know? It's ME. ME with the nerve to finally post a chapter after such a bloody long time and not expecting to be shot/flogged. Well, school/attempts at a life took up more time than I thought they would. And I wrote the first chapter what… 12 days before the Season premiere? And now FIVE EPISODES have already occurred? I hope you can find it in your large, warm hearts to forgive me for being so incredibly selfish. As we speak I am groveling at your feet for forgiveness, though you don't know it having learned to block out any disappointment since I know being left at the hill-hanger the first chapter ended with left you hurt, sad, wanting to bomb something, etc._

_I'd like to apologize in advance for the crapness of this chapter.And no, this isn't only because I think everything I write is crap, at first, until someone tells me repeatedly how fantastic it is, which I do. I HATE writing Chris. Iend up trying to make him seem as mean as he possibly can and then it isn't realistic. But this needs to be done. And sinceI couldn't really fitin anything else in a chapter that seemednatural,it's all that's done.I can't wait until I FINALLY get to the Stars Hollow part. Here's the promise I'll try my hardest to keep: the next chapter will be longer and it will be posted somewhere within the next two weeks. _

**Muffin Is Injured**: Oh my. YES. This is exactly what you probably thought it was upon receiving that email- a new chapter! Finally, after (how long has it been? A month? Woah, I suck) all that time of pining, the Lusciously Loined one returns with a new chapter. Incredibly short, yes. Incredibly angsty, yes. Deep? Maybe. Can numbness be painful? Absolutely. I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter, m'dear, and even went so far as to calling me 'stupid' for 'not getting a publishing deal.' Have I tried? Yes. I'm waiting for the perfect moment, Muffin. You know of my evil plan. Thank you for being you, Muffin. For you make my dreams come-a-true. Must stop before the corny music begins.

**Lorimar Jayne, ****Ten Ticket Thrill Ride, ****lukelaiandroryndean, ****JoEySaNgEl1534, ****No.13dreamer, ****BluJPlover, ****biscottimoment, **hi, **javajunkie219, ****xxnicole033xx, **Sophia… Thank you. And I'm sorry. And thank you. I love you. I'm sorry. THANK YOU. I wish that I could write shout-outs of saying 'sorry' repeatedly and groveling but because I am once again, selfish, and have two projects due next week, I am not.

_And now, the chapter that you have come here to read that actually kind of sucks and is not worthy of you… but alas, I am but a humble Fan fiction writer._

* * *

"I'm pregnant."

They were silly and serious at the same time, those words, spoken softly and hesitantly, drawn from to weeks' worth of built up courage, but falling like a badly aimed whipped cream pie somewhere to the far left of its target. Like a bad joke in a room of crabby nuns. It didn't fit, it seemed strange next to the weird food smells drifting over from the fake meat in the cafeteria, weird next to the way this place reeked of a month ago, when she'd be sitting at that table ten feet from here, making fun of Ms. Walton, slinging her arms around her friends, singing the lumberjack song obnoxiously.

It took a while for the words to make contact, to initiate some kind of response. But then a quick series of emotions flashed over Chris's face, surprise and confusion and seriousness all too resembling of his father (deep frown, etched eyebrows) and finally amusement. The pie splattered.

"You are?"

"Yes, I am."

His sardonically amused expression faltered at her new sincerity, but just for a moment.

"Oh yes?"

"Chris…" She turned away and felt a pounding headache and nausea emerge simultaneously. At her silence Christopher's eyes began to panic.

"You're funny. Lor, you're funny." He turned to a random group of students to their left. "This girl is _funny._ Hey, do your Prince imitation, I don't think they believe me."

She found a smile and displayed it wanly for the students and Chris. "Hey, Chris, how 'bout those meds, eh?" She got up and pulled him firmly by the arm and stalked through the crowd of hormone-enraged teenagers in plaid. The fake meat smell was maddening, incurring a deep nausea, and the lights were too bright, and she wasn't chickening out. She wasn't.

"Where are we going?" Chris tugged back in resistance but not so hard that she couldn't reciprocate it as well as turn around and glare at him. Over sprawling limbs, through jostling arms full of toppling lunch trays, she walked quickly while Christopher remained confused and dully aware of how strange the past thirty seconds had been. They speed walked out of the lunchroom door, turned a fast corner and finally swerved into a supply room. By some twist of fate it was there, open, and just big enough for the two of them and everything else.

Silence, finally, and dimness- the light that flew in through the door cracks was enough to make their faces vaguely visible- not enough for Chris to see the lie in her face. He touched her cheek and leaned in to her face, so that their eyes and lips were level, and he was pausing over them- confused about what she wanted. Lorelai could almost feel his senses raging where their arms and skin were touching; it was enough to make her scream. She pushed him away.

It was a horrible moment- awkward, life changing, cruel and pointy and vicious. Three weeks ago she couldn't imagine this happening; now it was gnawing away at her vital organs. Her spleen was getting ready to jump out somewhere above her left earlobe. _Bomb's away…_

"Christopher..."

Somewhere, muted and mutilated and distant, the bell rang.

"I'm pregnant."

The words echoed dully around them- this time, in their second utterance, they landed directly on their intended target. It was done, it was there- somehow, in this moment, there was nothing left to say. The air shifted, their silence was enforced by something, and Lorelai was surprised at the relief she felt- she hadn't even noticed the dread pressing weight upon every square inch of her skin- but just like that, it was gone, now flying around this small space savagely, settling on _him_.

"How?" He asked finally, his tone insistent but weak. It was a stupid question. "When?"

She sighed. "The Benefit Dinner. The bad olives. Our parents getting drunk and deciding it was a good time to finally get into the ol' disco craze ten years too late. You and I on the balcony…"

"Stupid," he finished.

She turned away, toward the door. "Well, it was done." Her voice was thick.

Christopher hesitantly touched her arm. She realized how old she felt, with more than old Abba songs coursing through her brain, and Christopher's face, barely visible, seemed very young all of a sudden. Frightened.

"What do we do?"

She paused, looking down on her feet, surprised that the stupid bawling thing was crawling up her throat again.

"Um…Um…" She whirled around to face the wall, to regain the stoic structure in her face, and then whirled back, laughing shortly. "We do…what we have to. At some point we should tell…them. I mean. They'll notice eventually." She laughed again, pulling a strand of hair back behind her ear.

White-faced, he nodded and accepted this. Waited for her to say something else.

"And then, depending on how quickly I recover from my encounter with dad's snow shovel, we decide what else to do about…it. Her. Him." Given more meaning, given a gender, some kind of name, a personality, a future, _it_ was having a new effect on her.

"Maybe we should…" She began softly. He didn't need to answer, just stepped out into the hallway and turned the corner to go to his classroom. She wiped her face with her blue sleeve then did the same, feeling flimsy, ineffectual, unaffected, floating toward Room 17.

* * *

I'd like to thank Muffin's good hair for making this chapter possible. And also, the writing gods for berating me during my sleep.

Review, if that aforementioned kindness in your hearts will allow you. Oh, here's a hook to get you to do it: What season do the girls have the best hair in? I want 25 words and a good argument to back it up.


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